You can check out a couple of interviews that I did the last couple of days with Roosevelt coach, Joe Robles Jr and with Capistrano Valley senior, Haley Herberg (photo credit to Kirby Lee). Roosevelt finished in 2nd place in the state division I race behind Great Oak and qualified for Nationals. Herberg won the Division II race with a time of 17:00 (second fastest time of the day behind the course record of Claudia Lane).

First of all, I would like to congratulate all of the Northern California teams and individuals on their successes at the California Interscholastic Federation State Championships. It was a very historic day, one that we all should be proud of.

Before the message board and personal messaging trolling gets out of hand (our team has already received its fair share of bashing before we even got home), I would like to mention a couple of things about my experience and hope that we all can support each other.

I want to give a major congratulations to the boys team of St. Francis of Mountain View for their win yesterday. It was a tremendous honor to have raced them and be a part of the most historic clash of CCS versus NCS teams in the history of the State Meet. Our team had talked about racing them and knew it was going to take a perfect race on our part to be able to beat them. They were clearly the better team and deserve all of the praise and accolades that they receive and I am very excited to see them represent our area at NXN. I also have to second a previous post by Bellarmine coach Patrick McCrystle about the class of this team. After our race, their entire team and coaching staff came over and congratulated our team and did it in a very humble manner. I truly appreciate this gesture. They have gained a huge Lancer fan this weekend and I wish them the very best at NXN.

I am extremely proud of our Dublin team and the successes they've had this year. We have had many conversations about racing and one of the things we stress is that it is ok to get beat, but it is not ok to lose. There is a difference. At State, St. Francis just flat out beat us. We didn't lose that race. To be honest, had we even run what I thought we were capable of, I don't think we would have won. We tip our cap to St. Francis on a job well done. It took the greatest team in CCS history to take us down and I told our boys that was nothing to be ashamed of. Moreover, we still became the first NCS team in over a decade to make the podium in Division II. How can you be upset at that?

I'm saying all of this because these are just kids we are talking about and I am getting rather tired of the trolling that goes on about not just my student athletes, but everyone's. It's disgusting that "anonymous" gets to say whatever they want without having to toe the line in the shoes of these fine and outstanding young people. Support our student athletes in a positive manner and understand that what they read does affect them. We are all human and can't just shake it off.

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there whether you are part of the Cross Country and/or Track and Field communities. Best wishes to all the competing athletes at Saturday's California State Cross Country meet.As we near the end of this Cross Country season and if you have enjoyed the coverage on this site, feel free to make a kind donation for the upkeep and maintenance of this blog. You can do so at the PayPal link to the right. I will wrap up this current season in the next couple of weeks including the Northern California awards and start looking ahead to the upcoming Track and Field season. If you have any ideas to make this site even better, feel free to do so in the comment section below or email me at albertjcaruana@gmail.com.

Wednesday, November 08, 2017

Very sad news to read about this. Evan did a great job coaching Mt. View HS that included multiple CCS championships for both of his Cross Country teams. His 2009 boys' team won the CIF Division 2 state championship (and just missed making NXN) and at the time were the best CCS team to date. Many of the team time records that have been broken by the St. Francis boys this season surpassed that Mt. View team.

Tuesday, November 07, 2017

You can check out the latest North Coast Section (NCS) rankings at this LINK. With most of the league events now complete, the road to the state meet from the NCS MOC meet is becoming more clear. Feel free to comment below if I missed any athletes or teams.

You can check out her announcement thanks to SID Steven Shaff at this LINK.If you have a college announcement that you would like to share, please email me the 411 (old school info number) and I will get it posted.

Thursday, November 02, 2017

Nationally ranked St. Francis, Mt. View boys continue to make their case for the best Central Coast Section team ever. At yesterday's WCAL final, the boys ran the 3rd fastest team time ever on the historic Crystal Springs course. You can check out the all-time lists (thanks to Hank Lawson) at this LINK. Bellarmine had won 10 league titles in a row starting in 2007 when the individual league champion was St. Francis senior, Phil Pompei (current St. Francis head coach).

Also, from the SCCAL, Aptos girls upset Santa Cruz girls 32-33. You can read all about that effort at this LINK.